Day: July 18, 2013

Today I am interviewing John Rickards who has recently launched a new website dedicated to the discovery of good books merely (and I use that term ironically) by the writing. From the website: No Names, No Jackets(aka 3NJ) is a book discovery service with an innovative twist: all you see here is one chapter from a story without knowing who wrote it, whether it was self-published or traditional, its synopsis, its title, or what its cover looks like. We all say that good writing should be the only thing that matters, not good salesmanship or high profile. 3NJ aims to make that a reality …Continue reading “No Names, No Jackets”

Hope (The Knights of Av’lor)
by Sam Rook
Available from Amazon, B&N, and Kobo.

The winged knights—magically altered humans—are the only ones defending the portal from Av’lor to Earth. With defeat imminent, they find an unlikely source of hope in software engineer, Kathryn.

Kathryn doubts her life could get any worse after the death of her mother and daughter. She realizes her mistake after she arrives on Av’lor with only part of her house and hungry creatures looking for their next meal. Once the knights bring her under their protection, she discovers their angry commander is far from welcoming.

Sir Lanclor, Commander of the Knighthood, lives with the curse of betrayal. While the treachery occurred lifetimes before, few see past his guarded shell to the grim man beneath. Barely holding the Knighthood together, his grip tightens when Kathryn joins their ranks. Her stubbornness and surprising strength not only energizes the knights, but also makes Sir Lanclor question his self-imposed isolation.

With the approach of an invading army, Kathryn and Sir Lanclor must find a way to end centuries of war and save two worlds.

Like this:

In the very short version of this story, Apple got together with big publishing and invented something called the agency pricing model.

This was their warm, fuzzy way of saying the publishers would set the retail prices.

Under the traditional pricing model, publishers charged booksellers something like half the cover price of a book, and allowed the booksellers to discount the books to whatever price they wanted. But Amazon took that even further and discounted the books to below wholesale price. Yes, Amazon was losing money on every eBook they sold.

Because the big publishers do not want eBooks eating into print book revenues, they do not want deep discounts on digital editions. The agency pricing model effectively eliminated any discounts on the cover price.

Despite the fact that Apple was the one nailed by the court, what really underlies this whole shameful episode is panic in the publishing industry. You see, Amazon continued to pay the full wholesale price for the books they bought from Random Penguin Solutions, et al. Every single one of the publishers would have made a higher per unit profit on books sold by Amazon than those sold under the agency pricing model. Obviously it isn’t just about the money. It is about survival. Continue reading “The Price-Fixing Debacle”